


Four Years After

by eric_idle_rules



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 20:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13107783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eric_idle_rules/pseuds/eric_idle_rules
Summary: It’s been four years, four long years, since Day One of the outbreak.  Seth remembers the day everything started.  He was two weeks into junior year of high school.  And then it all went to shit.~~~Or, the one where Seth decides to celebrate Christmas in the Apocalypse





	Four Years After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamentomori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamentomori/gifts).



It’s been four years, four long years, since Day One of the outbreak. Seth remembers the day everything started. He was two weeks into junior year of high school. And then it all went to shit. At first, things seemed like they might be ok, he still had his family. They were hunkered down in his family home for quite some time. Until they got his dad. Then they got his sister. 

In the end, a year after becoming nomads and living on the run, Seth had to give mercy to his own mother. 

He’s found others along the way, though, people he would now call friends. They’ve been through everything together. The first person he joined up with was named Dean Ambrose. Dean was the same age as him, 20 years old, and had pretty much the same story as him. For a while, it had just been Dean, his mother and his best friend Roman, surviving as best they could, until she was bitten right in front of him. Just like Seth, he had to mercy her. Roman was with the group for a while, but ended up at the hands of the zombies. All they could do was watch and, in the end, give him mercy, as well.

The next person to join them was Becky Lynch. She was an Irish exchange student, over in the States for college. She never did find out what happened to her family back in Ireland once everything happened, though she still holds out hope that maybe someone’s left over there. 

Lastly they were joined by two former police officers, Tyler Breeze and his partner, who for reasons unknown insisted upon only answering to the name Fandango. Tyler told them all it was a running joke back at the precinct and he thinks he does it to hold onto some of the lightness of the past.

Currently, Seth and his motley crew are holed up in an abandoned house somewhere in the middle of the country. They’ve been here for a few days, as somehow there are still cans of unopened food in their pantry, and to have food and shelter after so many years is a blessing.

Seth’s sitting by a window, gazing out from time to time as a lookout, with a book in his lap. It’s almost surreal, the feeling of having a book open in front of him. To think, something that would have been so casual five years prior, is almost like a luxury now. 

Later that night, as they’re sitting around splitting a can of black beans, Seth says, “So, I know no one celebrates Christmas anymore, but I was just reading this book and I was thinking… maybe we could?”

“You want to what?” Becky asks. 

“I think we should celebrate Christmas.”

“It’s the middle of summer,” she replies. 

“So? We’ve been through, what, four years now of this shit? Of killing zombies and seeing our family die right in front of us and living on the run, never knowing if today we could turn. I think we should try to spread a little Christmas cheer, even though it’s about 110 degrees outside.”

“Sounds like a fair point to me,” Dango says. 

“Let’s do a Yankee Swap,” Tyler suggests. 

~~~

The following morning, they all begin looking for gifts. Dean and Seth are both outside, guns and knives at the ready just in case, on the hunt. “What do you think you’re gonna get?” Dean asks. 

“I can’t tell you that, it’ll spoil it,” he says, grinning at Dean. 

Dean smiles back and, honestly, Seth doesn’t recall a time when he’s seen Dean look happier, kinda wishes Dean would smile more often. But he knew that this Christmas celebration would lighten the mood and cheer everyone up, if only just a little. Glancing down, Dean sees an old rotted zombie hand lying on the browning grass. “Think anyone would want this?”

Seth follows Dean’s line of sight downwards. “Don’t you even think about it.”

~~~

The garage had stacks of old newspapers in it, none of them really know why, but they’re not questioning it as they use it to wrap up their gifts. 

“Shit, I wasn’t very good at this to begin with,” Becky says, “but now that it’s been so long, I’m even worse.” She looks down at her lumpy blob of a gift, but shrugs; it’s the thought that counts. 

Not too long later, everyone’s in the living room, sitting on the dusty couch and chairs, a small pile of gifts on the coffee table. They all take their turns opening things, laughing as Dango pulls a couple branches out of his wrapping paper. “You said to not go for the hand,” Dean says to Seth.

Seth doesn’t know if he’d rather go for the branch, or keep the rolled up newspaper he unwrapped. In the end, he trades for the branch. 

After everything’s opened, Seth asks, “What was everyone’s last Christmas like?”

“I was working,” Tyler answered. “Me ‘n Dango were both on duty that night. It was pretty uneventful. Not that I’m complaining, I’d rather have had an uneventful day at the office. I’d take an uneventful Christmas at work a thousand times over if I never had to see the outbreak happen.” He glances over to Becky, letting her know she’s up.

“Well, I’d been on vacation for a few weeks at that point. I’d been spending time with my friends and boyfriend.” She chokes up a bit at the mention of her boyfriend. The day before the outbreak was the last time they spoke. She goes on, though, “Christmas Day was spent with my mum’s side of the family. My little cousins were all so excited, telling me what they got from Santa. I got shot in the head by that dumb Nerf gun so many times that day.” Her smile returned by the end of her story as she recalls the fond memories of her with her family. 

Dean shrugs. “Christmas was really just like any other day to me. Mom ‘n me were too broke to afford much more than rent money, ya know? The only way I ever knew it was Christmas was she got me a single candy cane each year. I knew it was all she could do. Not like I needed anything, really. I had everything I needed.”

Seth places a hand on Dean’s knee, his grip gentle and comforting. Dean looks over at him and smiles a sad smile. “What about you?”

“My dad got me a car. I’d learned to drive over the summer, but didn’t have a car yet. So, Christmas morning I woke up and it was just like those old car commercials where so-and-so goes out to the driveway and there’s a shiny new car with a giant bow on top. I’d never been more excited in my life.” He knows how materialistic he sounds next to the rest of them, but they’re all in the same shit creek now, so where they came from before? Doesn’t matter. “The rest of the day I spent with my dad’s family. That was the last time I did a Yankee Swap. I think I got a Best Buy gift card that I never got the chance to use.”

Dean snorts. “Maybe in about twenty years you can rebuild Best Buy and use it then.”

“How the fuck are we gonna survive twenty more years of this?”

“Hey, we’re already four into it, what’s twenty more?”

“I heard they’re still working on the cure,” Dango says. He and Tyler have been playing around with the TVs and radios in the house, trying to hear any broadcasts they can, find out any information they can.

“Now that would be some kind of Christmas miracle,” Becky says, to which everyone mutters their agreement. 

Deciding that the mood needed to be lightened a little, Tyler asks, “Hey, so, what’s the best Christmas gift you ever got? When I was about five, I got a little electric toy police car. I kid you not, I played with that thing so much the batteries had to get replaced every week. You?” he asks, turning his head towards Fandango. 

“Me? I don’t know. I got a telescope when I was a kid. My parents thought I was stargazing, but really I’d use it to watch my neighbor’s TV.”

Tyler rolls his eyes, expecting nothing less from him.

Becky goes next, telling everyone about the promise ring she received from her boyfriend before coming over to the States for school. “I was flying here two days after Christmas. He gave me the ring and told me to come back to him, and that he’d be waiting there for me when I got back. Maybe someday I’ll get back there. Sorry I keep being the buzzkill,” she says. “How about you, Seth, what’s your favorite gift?”

“I gotta go with that car,” he says. “It was great for all the nine months I got to use it.” Seth turns his head to Dean, silently waiting for him to speak next.

When Dean feels eyes on him, he shrugs. “Before my grandma passed away, she’d always get me Christmas PJs.” He scratches the back of his head and shrugs again. “Like I said before, I didn’t have much. But, ugly as those PJs were, I’d always wear them,” he adds with a grin.

Seth smiles, thinking of a little Dean wearing ugly Christmas PJs warms his heart. “You musta looked so cute.”

“Still am cute,” Dean replies.

“Debatable,” Seth says, though he knows his cheeks are red. He’s had a bit of a crush on Dean for quite some time now. He’s never made much of it, though, given the circumstances. It never seemed right to act on it when there were so many other things going on, when their life was in danger day in and day out, something as frivolous as a little crush wasn’t important. 

“Ya know what I found when I was on the hunt for my little swap gift?” Fandango asks.

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell us,” Becky says. 

From out of his pants pocket he pulls a dusty plastic ball of mistletoe. “Mistletoe!” he exclaims, holding it up in front of him.

“What? What’s that for?” Seth asks.

“What do you mean what’s that for? You know what mistletoe’s for, right?” When Seth nods, he goes on, grinning. “I was just thinking that, well, we’re in a pretty ok spot right now. We haven’t had to kill anything for a solid eight hours at this point, we have food, we have a couple beds, maybe now’s the time to get the lovebirds together.”

“Lovebirds? What are you talking about, lovebirds?” Dean asks.

“Oh, I think you know,” Becky says.

“Wait, ok, hold on, I mean, no offence, I like you and all, but I don’t like you like that,” Dean tells her.

Becky just laughs. “Me? You thought I was talking about me? No, we’re talking about you and Seth.”

“What?” Seth asks, totally taken aback. People knew? People could tell that he had a crush on Dean? And, wait, Dean has a crush on him?

“You two have been all over each other since the day we met,” Tyler says. “Neither of you were very good at hiding it.”

Seth is sitting on the couch, right next to Dean, with his hands covering his head. He can’t believe this is happening right now. “I hate you all,” he mumbles into his lap. 

Fandango stands from his own chair and heads over to the couch, holding the mistletoe over the pair of them. “C’mon, Seth, look up.”

“No.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to kiss me?” Dean asks him.

Seth whips his head to the side, staring at Dean. “What?”

“Cuz I kinda wanna kiss you. Have for a while now.”

“No, I… same,” Seth says. He finally glances up, seeing that plastic ball overhead, then looks to Dean again. “This is so weird.”

“You mind, Dango?”

He places the plastic mistletoe right on Seth’s head, then turns to sit back in his chair. 

Dean reaches over and plucks the ball from Seth’s head, continuing to hold it over them. He then leans forward and presses his lips to Seth’s. It’s awkward, they don’t know how to turn their heads and their noses get in the way. “You done this before?” Dean asks.

“No,” Seth admits, slightly embarrassed that he’s twenty and never kissed anyone, but at the same time, his teenage years were ripped away from him. He had to fend for his life for the past four years, not worry about who he could ask to prom and see if he could get a kiss out of it at the end of the night. “You?”

“Just once when I was fourteen. So, it’s kinda been a while.” He tilts his head just a tad bit more to the right and goes back for another kiss.

The sight in front of them really puts things into perspective for the others in the room. The two lovebirds were just kids when the outbreak happened. They never got to experience so many things that were normal when they were teenagers. “Wanna go on night watch?” Becky asks. “Give those two some time?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” the other two agree, leaving the room so they can start their lookout shifts. 

Seth runs his hand in Dean’s hair, smiling at him. “I never thought I’d get the chance to do this. I mean, not just with you, with anyone. I thought for sure I was gonna die without ever having kissed someone,” he admits.

“Yeah, I never thought I’d get the chance to do this again, either. I’m real glad you decided to celebrate Christmas.”

“Me, too.” He pulls Dean in for another kiss, and this time there’s tongue, and god, Seth doesn’t care that it’s the middle of summer, this is the best Christmas celebration he’s had in a long time.

“Hey, Seth,” Dean says when they pull back.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t really wanna die a virgin.”

Seth goes back to kissing him, messier and sloppier than before. “Me, either.”


End file.
